Real Time, Simulated Time and Two Types of Time Travel

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article argues that the possibility that we live in a computer simulation has important implications for the philosophy of time and time travel. Section 2 distinguishes real time from simulated time. Section 3 argues that whatever is true of real time, simulated time realises a functional analogue within real time to versions of presentism in which features of the present play the role of an uninstantiated past and future. Section 4 then argues that whereas real time travel paradoxes depend upon the ultimate nature of ‘base‐reality’ and consistency with observed physics, the possibility of simulated time travel depends instead on a simulation's code, which may allow seemingly ‘miraculous’ exceptions to ‘physical laws’. Finally, Section 5 concludes that if miraculous forms of time travel are discovered, this may provide evidence by inference to the best explanation that we live in a simulation.